Redefining the Yamas & Niyamas: Ishvara Pranidhana

We have just spent the past 9 weeks re-framing and re-defining the Yamas and the Niyamas. These are the seeds within us that must be watered in order to experience harmony with our inner and outer worlds. We have committed to the study of our ourselves, the goodness within, and how to access and output that goodness so we can experience ourselves as a ray of the sun. Today we trace ourselves as the ray, back to the almighty sun itself. The sun could be considered Ishvara and our devotion to it, Pranidhana. Ishvara can be defined as: God, Supreme Being, or Lord, and Pranidhana as: surrendering, and prayer.

You may or may not resonate with the above stated translations, if they are not your cup of tea, don’t drink them, but please do try out some other flavors of tea until you can fill your cup with the right stuff. What might our moments feel like if they were dedicated to the sunlight that heats our planet? Or to the raindrops that nourish our food? Or to the trees that provide us shelter?

Let us drop the debate that is suffocating our devotion. Let us worry less about wether it’s Ishvara or God or Brahman or Shiva, and wow ourselves more, with the remarkable web that one tiny spider weaves in just an evening or with the ever present patience of an alligator or with the magical hanging moss that drapes like an archway from the trees like its the entrance to heaven itself…oh dang…maybe it is! The miracles are many, yet they are often overshadowed with our commitment to our complaints.

If we can unsubscribe from the auto-debit, life sucking, subscription to limitation and lack, then we have the choice to intentionally subscribe to the awe and wonder of the infinite. Rather than me, my, and mine, how about we sit in stillness, in wonder, that we are breathing the breath of the divine.

What might our moments amount to if we chose to devote our devotion to our moments rather than expecting to get something out of them? What might God show us, if we simply showed up for God?

Dearest Reader,

Your relationship with God/Source/Supreme Being is so personal and also I believe, essential to experiencing yourself and this life with as much joy as possible. When we are disconnected from the intelligence of creation, we are disconnected with ourselves and therefore others. When we are connected, we have the support and guidance to make our way through all of life’s waves with more grace and more understanding, with less doubt and fear, and this way of living in trust of yourself and of life relieves so much unnecessary suffering. Each day foster your relationship with spirit, dedicate your doings to something greater than me, my, and mine. Receive each inhalation as a gift, and each exhalation as an opportunity to say thank you.

Blessings,

Andrea Dawn